


Some Entirely Unremarkable Evening

by A_Little_Boosh_Maid



Series: Zooniverse Nights [5]
Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Contains Scenes of Sexy Danish Arthouse Cinema, Fluff without Plot, Friendship/Love, Light Angst, M/M, Male Slash, Mild Sexual Content, Pride and Prejudice References, References to Canon, Season/Series 01, Slice of Life, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Very Vague References to Possible Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 16:39:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Little_Boosh_Maid/pseuds/A_Little_Boosh_Maid
Summary: In which Howard and Vince resolve to spend the evening being nice to each other, and serve up a big bowl of warm Booshy comfort food.





	Some Entirely Unremarkable Evening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RedChucks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedChucks/gifts).



> This is dedicated to RedChucks because of an interesting conversation we had about Captain Cabinets after I read their cabinet-related story "Can He Get Out? 'Course He Will", but most especially for their lovely "Boosh and Prejudice" stories.

Howard entered the zookeeper's hut he shared with Vince, carrying his towel. The hut was empty, because Howard was the first one back from taking a shower, even though he had further to walk.

He was glad of that, because if he went a long time between showers (and by that he meant "showers", wake up, he's not just referring to being under water like a stickleback here), and if Vince had been especially teasing and provocative with him, and his life had generally been stressful and a bit shit, he tended to have showers (by that I mean _showers_ , keep up) that were over extremely quickly, but whose images left him feeling deeply ashamed.

He always had an attack of the Cornish guilts after a "shower" (obviously I'm not talking about a regular shower here), but after a _shower_ (you know what I mean now) he felt sick and shaky, as if he had committed some terrible crime that he had got away with, but for the rest of his life would be looking over his shoulder, waiting to be caught and punished.

So Howard was glad Vince wasn't there yet, and he had a few minutes to get his features straightened out so he wasn't looking pale and guilty and criminal when Vince returned. He was especially gentle with Vince after a shower and very ready to indulge his whims, and give him anything he asked for.

Vince didn't know why Howard got like this sometimes, he didn't have the key to Howard's headache-inducing Chinese puzzle of a mind. But he could sense things as an animal does – and if you have a dog, you know it's basically psychic the way it scampers into the room and barks when you accidentally think the word "walk", or goes nuts the day before you come home from a holiday, as if it had some early-warning system installed in its little brainbox.

Vince understood on some level that Howard was trying to atone for something he hadn't done, but which he thought he had done, or had thought about doing. It seemed proper mental to Vince, but he accepted Howard in all his mysterious dark complexity, and rarely took advantage of him in these especially gentle, indulgent moods. That was because it was so much more fun to wheedle things out of Howard against his will than to have them handed to Vince on a silver platter and thank you kindly, ta very much.

So when Vince walked into the hut, still drying his hair on a towel, and found that Howard had started making the soup, and instead of looking shifty and secretly smiling into his moustache he was all downcast eyes and false heartiness, and he had put _The_ _Best of Gary Numan 1978-1983_ on the tape deck, he knew that Howard was in one of his weird moods again (at least, weirder than his other weird moods).

Vince knew that he had to treat Howard softly at these times, and not pester him too much, so he didn't even drop a hint that he would have preferred to listen to _I, Assassin_ , but came to help with the cooking, beginning to peel and dice the carrots.

Howard's eyes were looking too tiny and red even for someone chopping onions, so Vince decided he'd better work some of his old Sunshine Kid magic on him. He picked up a carrot and waved it at Howard to get his attention, then began telling him a story about the time he was brutally attacked by one of those orange vegetables.

Howard's moustache twitched a little, but he obligingly slotted into the role of incredulous straight man.

"Now, now, that's impossible, sir!", he expostulated, hamming it up. "Nobody has ever been attacked by a harmless carrot in their lives".

"Yeah, but this was a _wild_ carrot, weren't it?", explained Vince.

"You mean it wasn't one of your docile domestic breeds, but a fierce wild carrot with a taste for human blood?", prodded Howard.

And so Vince's bizarre shaggy-carrot story went on in circuitous, fantastical, juicy-dangling ways, until the conclusion was that someone had once hit him over the head with a carrot at Tesco.

"And who hit you?", asked Howard, having become drawn into the story despite himself.

"Dunno. I landed on the floor, and when I got up, there was nobody around".

"Are you sure you were even hit with a carrot?".

"Well, there was a carrot next to me ... although now I think of it, it might have already been there".

"Could you have possibly just slipped on a carrot and fallen over?".

Vince struggled to remember. He wasn't sure now if the story really happened and he was exaggerating it to entertain Howard, or if he had completely invented it. He gave Howard a dopey vacant-eyed look meant to convey that he had no idea what they were supposed to be talking about.

"Honestly, Vince", Howard chided him.

But the sunshine magic had worked. Howard's little brown eyes were no longer downcast and staring at the floor as if he had dropped something, and he was no longer falsely hearty, like a pirate who knows he's slated to walk the plank and spend some serious face time with Davy Jones singing "Porpoise Song". He was smiling secretly into his moustache. Perhaps in a minute he would even start looking shifty.

Vince gave his finger a little nick with the vegetable knife, and let out an almost absent-minded "ouch".

"Have you cut your finger? Let me see. I'll get a bandaid for it", said Howard with nurturing zeal.

Vince protested there was nothing wrong with him, not even any blood, but Howard insisted on fussing over him.

"You need to be more careful, Vince", he said as he tenderly stuck a completely superfluous plaster on his friend's finger.

(He tried not to think about what he had done to Vince in his imagination, how he had shoved him roughly up against a wall, his massive hands pressing against the back of Vince's neck).

"I'm not that delicate", Vince said. "I can take a lot more than you seem to think".

Vince could see at once he'd somehow said exactly the wrong thing. Howard stared at him in torment, like a stricken deer who isn't so much frozen in your headlights as tucked beneath your two front wheels having a bit of a lie down on the road.

Vince didn't know why his comment had upset Howard so much, but as they put the soup on, Howard was back to being all downcast, and not even bothering with the false heartiness. Vince knew it was time to lure Howard in with a crimp, which is what they had recently begun calling their little songs.

Vince started off with _Soup, soup_ , and then Howard joined in on _A tasty soup, soup_ before they were both chanting together _A spicy carrot and coriander_. Vince was glad to see that Howard was getting into it, and singing about chili chowder and croutons with real enthusiasm, each of them able to improvise the lines as they went in perfect synchronicity.

They never thought about how they were able to crimp, any more than you might think about how you are able to breathe, or walk, or reach out to grab something in front of you. They took it for granted. They never thought about the fact that if they were both able to improvise exactly the same lines at exactly the same time, then it stood to reason their minds must be connected, or that they perhaps shared the same mind.

It was possible that Vince and Howard were two different sides of the one coin – at the very least, they were cut from the same cloth. But they continued not thinking about that: which is a good thing, because it would have ruined their crimping, and probably a lot of other things as well.

They kept crimping the whole time the soup was on and as they set the table. Vince was sure that crimping was really the best therapy for Howard when he was in a weird mood; much better for him than a jazz trance, which seemed to make him go a bit doolally, as if the outside world had stopped existing for him.

When the soup was finished, Vince put it through the blender while Howard sliced the bread he had made that morning. It was a saffron and rosemary loaf, and he claimed to have foraged the ingredients from the wild fields and hedgerows. Vince was more convinced than ever that Howard was just nicking the stuff out of people's gardens, but he wasn't saying anything. Saffron is meant to make you cheerful, and Howard's mood did seem to improve as he ate.

Vince got the pudding, which was chunks of different fruit cut into cubes. It was the same food he had made to feed the monkeys, but he didn't see why he and Howard couldn't have some of it. They were close relatives after all, and he and Howard had even been to Monkey Hell, thanks to one of those mix-ups which are amusing in hindsight but traumatising in the moment. Anyway, he told Howard he would sort it, and he had.

Being in a gentle and indulgent mood, Howard let Vince wash the dishes while he took the boring job of drying them and putting them away. That meant Vince spent most of the time splashing him with water, teasing which Howard bore with tolerant good humour, as if this was part of the punishment he deserved for his secret crimes. Vince thought Howard was no fun at all tonight, and wished he'd at least smack his bum with a damp tea towel a few times in retaliation. He liked it when Howard did that.

(Howard tried not to think about holding Vince down, forcing the front of his jeans open with his long fingers, dragging them down to his knees).

While they watched _The Journey of Captain Cabinets Through Time and Space_ on the telly, Vince ate his way through a selection of sweets: Ultra Violets, Flying Saucers, Strawberry Bootlaces, Saturn Zingers and Neptune Fizz. Usually Howard would have only let him eat a few, but he was being indulgent. He tried not to look at how Vince ate – it was almost obscene the way he sucked on anything sweet, then swallowed at the end in a gulp of pleasure.

"Do you like this season of _Captain Cabinets_ as much as the first two?", Vince asked.

"I'm not sure – how many more cabinets can he feasibly get trapped in?", Howard wondered.

"I liked last week, where he was trapped at the bottom of the Thames for four days in a chrome cocktail cabinet".

"My favourite is the one where he's trapped on Ben Nevis in a maple-wood filing cabinet during a snowstorm, then after he gets out he has to use the cabinet as a toboggan to go back down the mountain".

"Then there's the cabinet of curiosities one, set in Victorian times".

"Classic episode".

"But it's not really about the cabinets, is it?", said Vince. "It's all about the banter he has with the villain who traps him in the cabinets".

"BAFTA-winning banter", agreed Howard. "And the onscreen chemistry between them is incredible".

"Did you like the one where the villain trapped both himself and Captain Cabinets in a cabinet together?", asked Vince searchingly.

"Er, bits of it", said Howard nervously.

"What do you think it would be like to be trapped in a cabinet with someone?", asked Vince. "I mean, you'd really get to know each other, being that close, wouldn't you?".

Howard noticed that Vince seemed to have edged closer to him on the sofa.

"It would be very hot and stuffy, and I'd be worried about running out of air twice as fast", said Howard prudently.

"You know, there's loads of storage cabinets around the zoo", Vince said casually, moving even closer to Howard. They were almost touching now. "Most of them aren't even locked".

Howard gave an anxious cough, and moved a bit further away.

"The thing to remember, Vince, is that the cabinets in the show are actually symbolic".

"Of what?".

"The way we allow ourselves to become trapped in other people's constructs of reality ... putting each other in boxes ... being afraid to fully express ourselves", Howard explained.

Vince considered the theory.

"No, I'm pretty sure they're just cabinets", he decided. "I mean, this one is clearly just a glass laboratory cabinet being hurled into the sun".

After the show, Howard made a pot of tea and put on his video cassette of the BBC's _Pride and Prejudice_ miniseries so they could watch the first episode. Vince was only permitting this because of Howard being in a weird mood and needing to be treated softly and not pestered too much. But it was a well soppy story, and he was not going to remain silent about it either.

"This is really boring, Howard", he complained. "All they do is drink tea and look at each other funny".

Howard took a sip of tea, and gave Vince a shifty glance.

"And if they like each other, why do Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy keep being mean and rude to each other?", Vince grumbled.

"That's the romantic part, Vince", Howard sighed. "The arguing, the bickering; the deep, powerful, molten sexual tension that's brewing between them".

"What a waste of time. Why can't Mr Darcy just tell Elizabeth she's the fittest bird he's ever seen, and why can't she just rip his breeches down and give him a blowjob?", Vince said in disgust. "The whole thing could have been over in fifteen minutes – sooner if they didn't have such difficult clothes to get off".

"Please never write a Regency romance", Howard begged him, before hastily changing the subject. "Who do you fancy more – Elizabeth or Mr. Darcy?".

"Dunno. Threesome?", suggested Vince with a lack of interest. "You?".

The tips of Howard's ears went pink, but he said, "Neither. They're not real people. It's not worth thinking about because you can't talk to them or touch them".

"You mean like this?", said Vince, touching Howard on the chin and running his finger over his stubble.

"Don't start showing out", Howard said gruffly, his voice suddenly getting about forty percent more northern.

"Or what?", smirked Vince.

(Howard tried not to think about pulling Vince's hair hard as he forced himself inside him, sinking his teeth into the back of his neck).

"Anyway, the one I really fancy on this show is Mr. Bennet", asserted Vince. "I'd bum him any day of the week".

"You can't bum Mr. Bennet!", said Howard in horror.

"Okay he can bum me then, whatever", said Vince. "I'm not bothered".

"Fancying Mr Bennet is just wrong, Vince", said Howard. "You're not meant to fancy him: he's a husband, father, respectable landowner, and valued member of the Longbourn community".

"Yeah that's all pretty bummable", said Vince. "Mature, not afraid of commitment. It's great he's a dad – it makes him seem caring and responsible. Plus he's the cleverest and the funniest."

"Freud would have had a field day with you", said Howard, shaking his head.

"Yeah, I'd bum him and all", Vince replied. "I like a man with facial hair, and he seems like he would have been well kinky".

"You can't bum one of the great minds of Western civilisation", said an outraged Howard. "I mean, next you'll say you want to bum Einstein".

"Well, he had that scruffy sort of appeal", Vince said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't say no".

Howard felt distinctly ruffled. He'd tried to escape into a world of timeless romance and delicate irony, and Vince had ruined it for him again. Sometimes he thought Vince didn't have a romantic bone in his body, and his ideas about who to direct his sexual feelings toward were positively disturbing. Maybe even deranged. He would never be able to look at Mr. Bennet the same way again.

It was frankly a relief when Vince finally succumbed to a sugar coma and fell asleep on the sofa, his head lolling against Howard's chest. He slept with his mouth open, and was making Howard's jumper a little moist.

Howard took the opportunity to quietly switch over to BBC 4, which was showing a Danish arthouse film. He kept the sound turned very low, since it had subtitles anyway. The film was called _The Sublime Emptiness of Summer_ , and it had already been on for a while. There were two young men on the screen, perhaps nineteen or twenty, and they were swimming in a river naked. But of course it wasn't soft core porn that Howard was watching – this was art, sir!

It was very artistically shot, and it was obviously symbolic the way the men kept reaching out for each other as the water swept over their limbs. Howard was very much enjoying the symbolism, although he wasn't sure what exactly it was symbolising. The difficulties of communication in the modern age, no doubt. It seemed as if the men were always just about to touch one another, but each time the river would drag them further apart. One of the men floated on his back for obscure stylistic reasons.

Next the men were walking through the forest beside the river. There didn't seem to be any explanation for why they were suddenly in the forest, or why they were still nude, but you know whenever something odd happens in an arthouse film, it's definitely symbolic. The men stopped in a clearing, with light filtering through the trees, where they had a brief conversation about leaves and birds, and not, "Hey, why don't we have any clothes on?".

It reminded Howard of a day when he and Vince had been playing cricket by themselves at school, and had hit the ball into the woods near the playing fields. They both ran into the woods to search for the ball; it had been late in spring near the end of term, and the woods felt airless and humid under the shade of the trees, with a hot, resinous scent. They had stopped looking for the ball and walked slowly beside each other, not talking. Vince had looked at Howard questioningly, but he hadn't known what Vince meant by his expression.

On screen the men faced each other in the clearing, and then they began kissing, at first very gently, hesitantly, as if they were afraid to hurt each other, and then more and more passionately, almost fiercely. For once Howard was glad about the shower, as otherwise he might have felt quite tense by now.

Vince's head slipped down into Howard's lap, and Howard eased him into a more comfortable position. He looked down at Vince's sleeping face: he had absurdly thick eyelashes, and his lips were stained red with sweets. His mouth was still slightly open, and he was getting a sugary drool on Howard's thighs. Howard tried to imagine what kissing Vince would taste like. He swallowed. His mouth was getting dry. He wondered if it was too late to have another shower – maybe a cold one this time.

Howard switched off the telly and shook Vince awake, saying it was time to go to bed.

"Carry me", whined Vince sleepily.

Normally Howard wouldn't have put up with that, but he was still being gentle and indulgent, so he scooped Vince up awkwardly, and carried him in front like an oversized toddler. Vince wrapped his arms and legs around Howard, and put his head on his shoulder. Howard thought the whole gentle indulgence thing was really starting to get on his wick.

He dropped Vince onto the bed, and then Vince said, "Help me get undressed – my hand's injured". He held up the finger that Howard had put a bandaid on as evidence.

Howard's lips set into a thin line of disapproval, but he undid the button on Vince's jeans, and unzipped them. He pulled them down past his pants, then they got wedged on Vince's muscular footballer's thighs.

Vince sprawled on the bed, looking up at Howard teasingly. He could tell that Howard was over his mood, and it had become fun to make him do things he didn't want to again.

"Come on, give me a hand, will you?", said Howard crossly. "Your jeans are so bloody tight".

"Thanks for noticing", purred Vince, but he tugged his own jeans down past the knees so that Howard could pull them off. He was already barefoot, so scrambled under the covers in his pants and tee-shirt.

Howard pulled the covers over Vince, and patted them into place. He had an inexplicable urge to kiss Vince goodnight. That was ridiculous, so he carefully smoothed out his duvet instead.

"'Night, Vince", he said, getting undressed and into bed himself.

"Howard", said Vince. "Howard. Howard. _Howard_?".

"What?".

"Can we sleep together?".

"You must be joking", Howard said in disbelief. "Remember the debacle last time we tried sleeping in the same bed?".

"No, I mean can we push our beds together so you're right near me?".

Howard tried to sound calm and reasonable, and not ready to throttle Vince.

"Vince, don't you think if we did that it might cause gossip? What if someone came into the hut, and saw our beds like that?".

"Howard, people _already_ gossip about us", said Vince, in the tone of someone trying to explain a very simple concept to a very dim person. "They think we're boyfriends. They think we're madly in love. They think we bum each other. Putting our beds together isn't going to make any difference to what they say".

"Who spreads these idiotic rumours?", said Howard in irritation.

"Everyone", said Vince complacently.

Vince didn't mention that he spread more rumours about Howard and himself than anyone else. No harm letting others know that Howard belonged to him, and was off-limits. Putting a bit of fear into a certain fox that had got above itself had been sensible too. Jack hadn't let Howard near him since then. If there's one thing animals understand, it's marking your territory.

"Alright then", said Howard in resignation. He'd definitely had enough of the gentle indulgence thing for one night. He got up, and pushed his bed over so that it was next to Vince's.

"So they touch", Vince insisted.

Howard pushed his bed so that it was touching the side of Vince's. He got back into bed.

"'Night, Vince", he repeated, switching off the lamp.

"Goodnight, Howard", said Vince happily. "Thanks for doing that, it's brilliant having our beds together".

He looked over at Howard. Even in the dim light he could see the outline of Howard's profile now, and they were so close he could smell Howard. He had an indefinable spicy scent that made Vince feel excited, like early Christmas morning. It was the smell of something wonderful about to happen.

Howard took a shifty glance at Vince. He was an annoying little titbox who gave Howard so many emotions he didn't know what to do with them all, and none of them were exactly comfortable, but he supposed deep down he ... that is to say, he felt ... well, he was stuck with Vince, for better or for worse.

"Why didn't we push our beds together like this from the beginning?", Vince wondered. "Then you would have been the last thing I saw every night, and the first thing I saw every morning".

"I don't know, Vince".

Howard thought that he must be tired, because now Vince's idea didn't seem stupid at all. He couldn't figure out why they hadn't slept like this from the beginning either. Maybe there wasn't enough oxygen in the hut, he must be getting light-headed.

This must have been how Captain Cabinets felt when he was trapped in a cabinet with the villain, all hot and as if he couldn't breathe properly. That must have been why the two of them had behaved so strangely in that episode, lack of oxygen. I mean, you don't usually do _that_ with a villain, do you? Even one you have great onscreen chemistry with?

"This is nice, isn't it Howard? Being next to each other?".

"Yes, Vince. See you in the morning".

Despite being so very tired and severely lacking oxygen, Howard lay awake, wondering about all those storage cabinets around the zoo, just left unlocked. Anyone could wander into them ... it seemed like a security risk, or at least a health and safety issue. It might be worth checking them out; Vince could help him with it.

Howard became aware that Vince was stretching out his arm, and clasping Howard's hand. Howard decided to pretend he'd already gone to sleep, because he was pretty sure that holding hands doesn't count if at least one of the people is unconscious. He hoped nobody came in and found them that way. But with Vince's hand holding his, Howard found it easier to drift off than usual, and his dreams that night were very sweet.


End file.
